1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure is directed to fryers, and more particularly to an oil filtering device for use in fryers.
2. Related Art
Fryers typically include one or more fryer vats, and each vat may include a heating bath filled with heated cooking oil for cooking food products immersed therein. Some fryers may be equipped with a filtration system to manually or mechanically filter cooking oil drained from a fryer vat and return the filtered cooking oil to the fryer vat. As an example, FIGS. 1 and 2 show a deep-fat fryer disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,890,428, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Referring to FIG. 1, a perspective view of a prior art fryer 10 including two fryer vats 12A and 12B is shown. Each fryer vat 12A, 12B includes at least one respective basket 16A and 16B which is typically movable upward and downward via respective positioning guides 18A and 18B. The fryer 10 includes a frame 20 which preferably includes associated housing 22. A front panel 24 of the fryer 10 includes a control and display panel 26A and 26B for each fryer vat. The lower portion of the housing frame includes a set of doors 30A, 30B which are movable between open and closed positions. Below the doors 30A, 30B, a drawer 32 which is movable between open and closed positions relative to the frame 20 is provided. Positioned within the drawer 32 is an oil receiving pan 34 having a rim 36 which sits on rails 38 of the drawer 32. Handles 40 extend from the interior sidewalls of the pan 34. The pan 34 may also include lips or flanges 212, 214. A basket type screen 42 is removably positioned within the pan 34 for filtering out debris entering the pan 34 within oil which is drained from one of the fryer vats 12A and 12B.
At the bottom of the pan 34, a filter assembly 45 is provided for filtering the oil. An oil return path from the pan 34 back to the fryer vat 12A, 12B is formed in part by a coupler 44 which is connected to and extends from a front sidewall of the pan 34. The coupler 44 extends rearwardly back toward the fryer frame 20. A corresponding coupler 46 (shown in FIG. 2) is positioned on the fryer frame 20, with the two couplers aligned for slidingly mating with each other when the drawer 32 is moved to a closed position.
Referring now to FIG. 2, the pan 34 includes an outlet opening 48 through its bottom wall 50. The oil return path is formed in part by a flow passage through member 52 and piping 54 which runs along the external surface of bottom wall 50 and front wall 56 of the pan 34. Near the top of front wall 56, a wall penetrating coupling assembly 58 passes through the wall 56, with piping 60 extending upward from the pan 34 and rearwardly as shown. The end of piping 60 acts as the return coupler 44, which mates with corresponding coupler 46 connected to an oil pump 110. A handle member 112 is connected to the opening and flange at the upper side of the filter assembly 45 to seal off the upper side opening.
The oil pump 110 is used for drawing oil out of the pan 34. Oil traveling out of the pan 34 during a filtration operation travels from the pan 34, through the outer filter screen material of the filter assembly 45, into the interior of the filter assembly 45, and out of the interior of the filter assembly 45.
As described above, the prior art fryer 10 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 requires numerous holes to be bored into the pan 34 along with numerous welds to attach a structure thereto. Furthermore, the arrangement includes multiple parts and fittings. This complex configuration increases the manufacturing and repair costs. In particular, the complex assembly of the pan 34, the flow passage through member 52, the pipe 54, the wall penetrating coupling assembly 58 and the like and repair thereof require increased labor and parts cost. Further, the complex structure is more likely to fail and may need to be repaired and maintained frequently.